Martinis with Rod Serling

There are two competing interpretations of bucolic life in American popular culture: the sentimental and the darkly foreboding. The sentimental stretches from Norman Rockwell and The Andy Griffith Show and today pops up in the propaganda of both major political parties. The darkly foreboding stretches from Shirly Jackson's The Lottery and can be seen in films like Deliverance and the work of David Lynch.

My view of rural America tends to follow the darkly foreboding.

I was thinking about this as I sat in a small town restaurant with Len on Friday, watching the customers file in and out. No zombie film could have done it justice: here were the faces of the defeated, the bovine expressions of men and women beaten down by life, married couples sitting across from eachother and staring blankly with nothing to say. The atmosphere was heavy, oppressive.

And I was attempting to order a martini, straight up, Absolut, with olives.

"I'm sorry," said the middle-aged woman whose task it was to take our beverage orders, "it's my first day. What's in a martini? Just vodka?"

She came back with a martini glass. It contained approximately one shot of vodka and an olive.

"Try this and tell me if this is OK."

It was room temperature.

"Yes, it's fine.....what there is of it...."

Len and I were in town for our twentieth high school reunion and I was having thoughts of returning to Chicago. I wasn't sure I wanted to remain in a town in which I couldn't order a simple martini.

From the restaurant, we journeyed to the bar adjoining the local bowling alley to meet and greet our classmates, nearly all of whom were married with children. Conversations at the early stages of a class reunion always resemble job interviews with everyone shuffling from group to group, shaking hands, making self-conscious eye contact and nodding sagely at everything said. Just then, Acid Steve walked into the room.

Acid Steve had been my friend since we were eight years old. He was never particularly gifted with either brains or good judgment, but he was my friend, after all. We don't ask much more from old friends than shared experiences. After high school, he had disappeared for a few years. There were rumors of drug deals and insurance fraud, but very little was known with certainty. And I was seeing him for the first time in seventeen years.

He had changed. His facial expressions had crystallized into a series of maniacally intense tics and every seven or eight words were punctuated by the "heh heh heh" triplet of an artificial chuckle. He told me that he spent his time tinkering with bicycles and between sips of beer mentioned something about "finding God." I thought back to the ending of "Old Yeller." If ever there was a case for the mercy killing of a member of the class of 1987, this was it.

I had to get away.

Len and I drove to a tavern with a disreputable reputation and settled in to our drinks. Before long, a dirty-blonde 20-something approached and asked to borrow my sunglasses for her pool game.

"You can if you're careful. These are $200 sunglasses."

I had actually purchased them for $6 at an outlet mall, and they're the kind that usually retail for about $20. Price, however, is not the issue. Sunglasses and watches are really the only two ways men can accessorize, and these were good shades. Perfect for my face. She told me her life story: 23 years old, living with her parents and a six-month daughter. No boyfriend. She was well-built with freckles---the type I refer to as "country pretty."

As we were talking, her friend came up to me and said,

"I just want to tell you that you are gorgeous."

I was in the Twilight Zone! Such things do not happen to me, and my first inclination was to make sure my wallet was still there. It was, and as I basked in my new-found popularity Len walked by.

"David, you pimp."

A third girl told me,

"Jamie and Laura both like you. Which one do you like?"

A feather would have tipped the scales between the two. The feather, in this case, was a pair of sunglasses which Jamie had apparently slipped into her purse.

I asked Jamie for her number but told her I was leaving town on Sunday. She was going back to her parents in a bit and asked about tomorrow. We made plans to get together and I asked for my sunglasses back.

"You're from Chicago. You can afford sunglasses."

Such logic baffled me and although it wasn't exactly comme il faut, I pressed the issue.

"I'll give them to you when I see you again."

I knew I would never see my sunglasses again.

The next night was the Main Event---the reunion itself. As everyone I was attracted to was either married or otherwise hooked up, I resigned myself to a night of drinking and platonic socializing. I ordered a martini, straight up with olives from the bartender.

"That's a fancy drink," offered a guy behind me.

The bartender returned with a plastic cup conaining crushed ice with as much vermouth as vodka and apologized for the absence of the olive, as they were out. I decided to stick with wine for the remainder of the evening---a fresh box had been opened so I reasoned that it would at least be fresh.

As the evening faded into an alcohol-induced fog, I found myself at the same dive tavern as the night before. This time, a thirty-something came up behind me and squeezed my ass.

"Nice ass," she said as she resumed dancing with her overweight female friend. Len immediately cut in front of me to talk to her, as did a married classmate of ours. That was fine---I was too drunk. I had passed the point of no return an hour ago and did not have the sober command of my verbal skills to make flirty chit-chat. Besides, the bartenders were shooing us outside. I ran into a girl I knew from high school who used to be pretty---we hugged eachother. My married classmate was on her immediately, putting his arm around her and escorting her outside.

The world had definitely gotten more competitive.

Outside, nine guys were involved in a knock-down drag-out fight that resembled a scrum. I thought I saw someone get curbed, then realized that everyone was too drunk to do any damage more serious than a bloody lip or a broken nose. The cops were nowhere to be found. We made vague plans to go to an afterhours party but ended up going home instead.

I was glad to leave for Chicago. Submissive Liz texted me for a booty call, and this time I invited her over. It was nice.

Even better than having a martini.